Eggcorn Forum

Announcement

Registrations were closed for a long time because of forum spam, but I have re-opened them on a trial basis.

The forum administrator (chris dot waigl at gmail dot com) reserves the right to request users to plausibly demonstrate that they are real people with an interest in the topic of eggcorns. Otherwise they may be removed with no further justification. Likewise, accounts that have not been used for posting may be removed.

Yeah, I’m not sure what’s going on with the Search button. If you go to the actual Eggcorns Database page and choose the SECOND “Search” box – labeled “Google Site Search” – you’ll usually bring up what you’re looking for. But even there I’ve occasionally noticed that some of the Contribute pages don’t come up – I’ve never figured out the pattern behind the failures.

In any case, your instincts were correct: “Chester drawers” has been contributed a number of times. I think it deserves consideration for the Database because some of the writers seem to be thinking of the English city of Chester (the caps give it away). I don’t know if that northwestern town has a tradition of furniture making, but it certainly sounds like a place that could be renowned for oak drawers or something similar. The earlier posts:

Commentary by josh finkler , 2005/02/24 at 11:17 pm
chester drawers > chest of drawers
(i see this all the time in local for-sale papers. wacky, eh?!)

Commentary by Piedrasyluz , 2005/02/26 at 5:09 am
Here are a few more, but I’ll refrain from entering them because I can’t seem to get the formatting right:
Chester drawers (chest of drawers)
boom to the economy (boon to the economy)
chalked full (chock full)
down the pipe (down the pike)
fair to midland (fair to middling)

Commentary by Elizabeth , 2005/04/04 at 7:59 am
“Put those clean linen napkins in the chester drawers.”
[instead of chest of drawers]